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IN OPPOSITION TO THE PROJECT OF 



ANNEXING BOSTON AND ROIBURY. 



BY NATHANIEL F. SAFFORD, 



APRIL 10, 1867. 



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IN OPPOSITION TO THE PBOJECT OF 

ANNEXINd BOSTON AND EOIBUEY. 



BY NATHANIEL F. SAFFORD. 



the theme is roxbury. 
Mr. Chairman and Genti.ejien, 

Two hundred aud thirty-seven years was this city in building, and wilt 
thou destroy it? 

To answer this question, of such unusual magnitude, is the duty 
devolved upon you as legislators. Viewed in its I'elations to the past, it is 
a theme of vast significance. In its present and immediate eflect, it 
devolves upon you weighty responsibilities. The consequences which may 
ensue are so important that the subject demands the most patient investi- 
gation and the highest exercise of legislative forecast, wisdom and 
discretion. 

At a recent session of the Legislature, this subject occupied the Com- 
mittee during a considerable portion of that session, and the views of the 
remonstrants on the part of the city of Roxbury, were ably aud elab- 
orately presented by Edward Avery, Esq. 

Appearing then, as now, in an official relation, in behalf of the county of 
Norfolk, a relation as strictly official as your own, the remarks which I 
then submitted were quite fully reported, and I take occasion to place in 
the hands of your Committee, the arguments of Mr. Aveiy and myself, and 
thus abbreviate the extent of the present discussion. 

Nor am I unmindful that my sphere of duty concerns only one of those 
manifold relations which subsist on the part of these cities. 

This hearing, in one respect, presents a marked contrast to the frequent 
hearings that have been had during seventeen years last past. No crowds 
of opponents to the proposed measure, throng these halls to-day. No 
long catalogues of remonstrances from towns in the County, no resolutions 
of town meetings, no protests by citizens in their individual capacities, 
are heaped upon your tables to-day. The respondents bring not here, as 
heretofore, a long array of witnesses to confront the schemes of the 
petitioners. No eminent advocates are retained to parry the assaults of 
the ingenious and experienced counsel of the petitioners. 



WANT OF NOTICE. 

And why? The citizens of Roxbury came here and answered that ques- 
tion. — That they had not received the notice the law requires to be given, 
and they therefore witlidrew.* They had the right to presume that in a 
matter of tliis momentous interest to them as citizens, and to the Common- 
wealth as their sovereign, the legislature would be bound by its own laws ; 
that if not, if that plighted faith was violated, the Commonwealth and not 
themselves would be the chief sufferer. . That was the judgment of your 
Committee. It was sound judgment. ■ You reported to the Legislature the 
result. You gave the petitioners leave to withdraio. Your course was the 
only possible or consistent alternative. How, then, is it that I appear here 
to-day, representing, at this late hour of the session, the couutj^ of Norfolk? 
Because, after you had reported, 07i the same day the Senate directed you 
to hear the parties. 

What parties ? The petitioners, of course, are here. But the city of 
Boston is not represented here. The citizens of Koxbury, majority or 
minority, are not before you. Yet to all these, the decision of this ques- 
tion involves their most important rights, and their dearest interests. 
Hence my voice almost alone is heax'd in remonstrance against this measure. 
It is no answer to say there was practical notice. When the requirements 
which the law prescribes are not complied with, the respondents are justi- 
fied in relying upon the defence which the law prescribes. 

ALLEGED PRACTIC.VL NOTICE. 

But was there practical notice ? 

Had not these petitioners omitted to give notice because they themselves 
did not anticipate a hearing at this session? Did not Mayor Lewis of 
Roxbury in his message use these words : 

" I am informed, however, that it is doubtful if the subject will be presented to the Lcfi^is- 
lature at its coming session." 

And why did not the petitionei's anticipate a hearing, and why was 
Mayor Lewis in doubt? 

Because after seventeen years of discussion and rejection, the petitioners 
had sought out a new mode of operation. 

The City Council of Boston had adopted an order that whenever the 
City Council or Selectmen of any city or town, whose territory adjoins 
that city, should represent that they desire to consult with the authorities 
of Boston on the subject of annexation, the Mayor shall appoint three 
Commissioners, to meet an equal number from the city or town making 
such request, and they shall report upon the subject, etc. 

So far then from having any practical notice of this hearing, every citi- 
zen and corporation interested, had a reasonable assurance that these 
cities would take some action upon the report of the Commissioners, 
before any legislative action was invoked. No such action has yet been 

* The city of Roxbury is not represented here. 



had on the part of eithei' eity. Neither city has yet submitted the question 
to the vote of its citizens. 

It was therefore submitted to the discretion of your Committee that 
inasmuch as the petitioners coalJ not avail themselves of that report as a 
basis for further action, no hearmg upon the merits should occur at this 
late hour of this session. 

In a contest expensive and wearisome as this has proved in the years 
that are past, it seems that the opponents of this measure, had the right 
to rely, with confidence, on the existing order of things, — the right to 
presume, that existing organizations must continue. True, the case is not 
a new one. Petitioners and respondents can but reiterate old, worn and 
threadbare arguments, re-assert old opinions and well-settled conclusions. 
It would be unsafe, therefore, to assume that any less formidable resist- 
ance now exists than has heretofore existed on this subject. 

The Constitution provides that any town of 12,000 inhabitants may adopt 
a city charter, upon its acceptance by a majority of voters. When such 
charter is obtained and accepted, it ought not to be repealed or annulled 
by any legislative action less solemn or deliberate than occurs in the adop- 
tion of a constitutional amendment. The mode of repeal is of as high 
a nature as the mode of its creation. §uch a constitutional amendment 
would remove these impoi'tant subjects from the ordinary range of legisla- 
tion, and be productive of salutary consequences. 

But the petitioners again urge the old argument and say that their inter- 
ests and aflections, almost their very existence, are identitied with the 
municipal interests of Boston, and not with those of Roxbury. 

The respondents, on the other hand, claim that their interests, their 
attachments, their local pi'ide and influence, are all identified with Rox- 
bury as it is, that they love its traditions, and repose securely under its 
municipal government. 

HEARINGS. 

When we consider the many hearings which have been had before legis- 
lative committees, and the weeks and months of protracted discussion 
which this subject has occupied, it is diflicult to invent a new topic or pre- 
sent, in a new form, an already exhausted argument. 

REPORT OF 1852. 

In a city document of Roxbury, dated 1852, it is stated that that was the 
third year the subject had been before the Legislature. 

The result to which that committee came is reported in Senate Docu- 
ment No. 108, dated April 15, 1852, and reads as follows : 

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

In Senate, April 15, 1852. 
Tbe Joint Standing Committee on Towns, to which was referred the i^etition of Isaac T. 
AUard and others, praying that the city of Roxbury might be annexed to Boston have duly 
considered, and examined with all the care and diligence of which they are capable, during 
a protracted hearing of the evidence presented before them, both for aud against the union 
of the two cities ; and have come to the conclusion, that although Boston at some future 



period may include within her limits not only Roxbury, hut all the towns and villages with, 
in a circuit of four to six miles, when such a union will be sought by the city herself, to 
make room for her inhabitants, and to increase her influence and popularity abroad; but, in 
the opinion of your Committee, the exigency had not yet arrived when it would be advan- 
tageous for the citizens of Roxbury to change their municipal relations, or for the county of 
Norfolk to dissolve its connections with the city of Roxbury. All the wants and difficulties 
complained of by the petitioners can be as well supplied and remedied wihout annexation 
as with it. And further, it was not in evidence before the Committee, that there was a 
majority of the ftgal voters of Roxbury desiring annexation. Your Committee therefore 
unanimously report, that the petitioners have leave to withdraw their petition. 

By order of the Committee, 

Zenas D. Basset, Chairman. 

The report of the City Council of Koxbury adds : 

"We cannot conclude this report without acknowledging our obligations to the Hon. John 
J. Clarke and William Gaston, Esq., for their professional services, voluntarily given to the 
city, in opposing the prayer of the petitioners. By careful preparation prior to the hearing, 
by their vigilance in guarding the interests of the city, by professional skill and untiring 
industry during the protracted hearing, they contributed largely in bringing this question to 
a happy and successful termination. The Committee would therefore recommend the adop- 
tion of the following resolves. 

"All which is respectfully submitted. 

" For the Committee, 

" Samuel Walker, CJiairman." 

Then follow the resolutions of thanks to those gentlemen for having 
contributed largely towards the defeat of a project not in accordance with 
the wishes of a large majority of their fellow-citizens. 

VOTE OF ROXBURY. 

Thus we see that after seventeen or eighteen years of legislative expe- 
rience, while the petitioners have been always vigilant to press this cause 
whenever opportunity otlered, their request has been uniformly denied. 
At one time the city government of Roxbury referred it to their citizens, 
to determine whether they should petition for an act of annexation, and 
the whole number of votes cast in favor of it, in Eoxbury, was 262. 

Since the first movement on this subject, many of the wants of Koxbury 
have been supplied, and time and events have removed many of those 
dilTiculties which were supposed to obstruct the progress of Roxbury — 
what were problems then, have been since solved — arguments for annex- 
ation have been swept away with the disappearance of the reasons on 
Avhich tlicy were based. 

During these protracted and exhausting discussions, several thousands 
of legislators have occupied these halls, but the result has been always 
the same. 

Never have the people of any city, of either city or town, voted in its 
favor. Never, so far as ray knowledge extends, has the project received 
the sanction of the city government of either city. 

No Senate or House of Representives has approved it — nevei', a city 
has asked for it — not one, now. Neither aid or encouragement has ever 



been rendered by the county, nor by any town in the county, but always 
and ever the reverse. 

Yet the petitioners have been always vigilant. They have sojourned or 
been heard iu almost every chamber here — in the Senate and the House — 
with galleries ci'owded, and without — with the lobby, and without — with 
politicians, and without — Avith lawyers, and without — with mayors, dis- 
trict attorneys, and governors as counsel — with past members of the 
General Court, and with new members — before committees of different 
members, and of the same members (impartial all) ; at the caucus — in con- 
vention of county, city and ward — for days and weeks and months — at 
morn and noon and late at night — in carriages, and out — at the view and 
on the highway — on the stump, at the polls, through the press, iu season 
and out of season — always, ever, with the same invariable result, but 
never before without due notice. In the main, the petitioners have been 
the same. Mr. AVhiting, first; Mr. Whiting, last — year one, year fifteen. 
The same persistent opposition, until to-day, when the evidence, the argu- 
ment, the wliole subject, has been literally exhausted, and well-settled leg- 
islative conclusions are engraven in the record, stereotyped and litho- 
graphed in a manner that defies the citation of a parallel case in legislation, 
we are called, at this late hour of the session, to listen again to these bur- 
densome details, at a time when neither city asks for annexation, and when 
neither is represented before your Committee. Yet these cities themselves 
comprise almost one-fourth part of the entire population of Massachusetts. 

HAS THE ASPECT OF THE QUESTION CHANGED? 

Have then the conditions which affect this inquiry in any material 
respect changed during the period of these discussions ? 

Assuredly, as little changed, as could occur in a matter of such magni- 
tude, except that the reasons for annexation have ceased to exist. 

It was one of the earliest predictions that gradual changes of time and 
events would provide for the wants of Roxbury, and any assumed obsta- 
cles to her progress would one by one be removed. 

Most signally, has that prediction been verified. Now if the county of 
Noi-folk is to receive great and lasting detriment from such act of annexa- 
tion, it may, nevertheless, be true that it would be the duty of tlie State 
and the county to suffer some detriment iu view of the benefits which 
would be conferred upon the city of Roxbury, or the cities of Boston and 
Roxbury conjoined by such annexation. 

If then, such benefits and advantages are to accrue to Roxbury or 
Boston ; or if these cities are to be relieved thereby from certain serious 
burdens which now press heavily upon them, it would be the duty of those 
suflering less comparative detriment, to submit to annexation as promo- 
tive of the genei-al good, though attended with incidental detriment to 
other existing organizations. 

It becomes necesssary therefore, to consider these relative alleged ben- 
efits and advantages to Roxbury, and ascertain the effect to be produced 
by annexation upon Roxbury herself, and see whether there are any 
reasons why any citizen of Roxbury should desire it, more especially as 



that citj' now comprises an integral portion of the county of Norfolk, and 
every citizen of that city, whether in the majority or minority, has impor- 
tant rights and interests involved in the result. 

REASONS OF 1852. 
As early as 1852, some of the arguments urged by Mr. Whiting and 
others were vm follows : Referring to Roxbury. 

" That for three or four years our unfortunate city has come to a stand, comparatively 
speaking; 

" Tliat in order to drain, we must drain through Boston ; 

" That we want better streets; 

" That eide-walks are wanted, — the Boston system to compel persons to make side-walks ; 
that great public squares are wanted ; that the city government of Roxbury are not apt to 
go into such generous improvements as are wanted ; 

" That Boston wants more native population, — that thus a successful effort could be 
made to save the capital of our State from falling under the control of foreigners, thereby 
averting a destiny which will involve ourselves, no less than our friends, in a common mis- 
fortune ; 

" That Boston wants to increase the number of her citizens, who will take and pay for 
the Cochituate Water; 

" That Roxbury owns public property worthless in her hands, unless she has Boston to 
drain through ; 

"That Boston wants us to pay our share of her public debt; 

" That it will improve the value of our real estate; that we may have our streets graded, 
surveyed and widened, and side-walks and shade trees; that we may have protection against 
fire by the introduction of hydrants; that we may more easily negotiate our mortgages; 

" That we may have public malls, scxuares ; nd fountains, the ornaments of our city, 
attracting to our borders gentlemen of wealth and good taste; 

" That we are opposed by city officers, by peculiar private interests, by honest men mis- 
led, by fair-minded men who fear change." 

PRESENT PROSPERITY OF ROXBURY. 

Such were some of the opinions of that day ; but iu this day, neither 
entertained, or if entertained, not uttered. The Commissioners' report 
assures us, that instead of " coming to a stand " during the last ten years 
the increase of population in Roxbury has been fifty-four per cent, and of 
capital tifty-one per cent ; that from 1855 to 18G5 its ratio of increase was 
larger, much larger than that of nine of the neighboring towns and cities 
(Somervillc, with its comparatively small population, being the only excep- 
tion). 

In his annual address the present year, Mayor Lewis says : 

" Perhaps we have never welcomed a new year which promised more satisfactory results 
than does the present. The capacity of our laboring and mechanical classes is tested to the 
utmost; the prospects of the tradesmen are satisfactory, our manufacturing interests largely 
on the increase; dwellings are no sooner oftcred for rent or sale than tenant or purchaser is 
found therefor, and in every direction within our borders general prosperity and happiness 
prevail." 

He adds : 

"The decennial census, lately completed, discloses the gratifying fact that the population 
of this city (Roxbury) has increased the last live years (notwithstandhig the existence of the 
rebellion) in a greater ratio than is the case with more than one other city iu the State. 



" Although the relative ratio in tlie matter of prosperity between Roxbtiry and the other 
municipalities of the State is not shown in the census just taken, it is believed that our 
increase in this respect has been as great as our population." 

He adds : 

" No one can reasonably doubt that from its great natural advantages, aided by an enter- 
prising and industrious people, our augmentation will be rapid hereafter." 

« 

Such is the united testimony concerning the prosperity of Roxbury, 
to-day, when contrasted with Mr. Whiting's "unfortunate city in the 
stand-still of 1852." 

SEWERS AND DRAINS. 

Again, how entirely is the case of the petitioners reversed in the matter 
of the sewer and drain. 

''Then, they must drain through Boston." To-day, "Boston must 
drain, say they, through Eoxbury." 

It was early testified by Mr. Parrott, Civil Engineer, see City Doc. No. 
6, case of AUard and others, that it was " determined by the committee to 
have no reference to the drainage of Roxbury but to conline them to the 
territory and present limits of Boston; " " that the sewers of Boston line 
would be such that Roxbury could not drain into them; " "that a sewer 
for Roxbury could not well be constructed by going out of the territory of 
Roxbury." 

And how is this verified in the experience of this day? 

Roxbury is constructing, and will soon complete, a sewer, at an expense 
of $(!8,757, all the way in her own limits, of capacity sufliicicnt to accom- 
plish every purpose which it is desirable to accomplish, in all that portion 
of her territory adjoining the Back Bay. 

It is more than probable, had annexation occurred, that this sewer would 
not have been constructed, for years to come. 

To remove the last obstacle, Mayor Lewis says in his report : 

" As this city (R.) has not the authority to lay sewers through private property, this priv- 
ilege will be asked of the next legislature." 

It has ever been maintained by the respondents, that although the chan- 
nels to Roxbury were adapted only to a limited commerce, there could be 
no practical impediment in reaching tide waters for all the purposes of 
sewerage, — for its marginal lines were Back Bay and South Bay, and as 
Mr. Tyler experienced in his adventure on the Neck, the trouble was not 
so much to reach tide waters, as to keep the water out. 

At a former period, the rights of the Boston Water Power Company in 
the water of Back Bay, interposed some hindrances— but this obstacle is 
also removed, as the contracts for filling entered into between the Com- 
monwealth and the Company, make it for their mutual interest, as well as 
for the mutual interest of both cities, to provide all such sewers and 
avenues as shall enhance the value of their lands. So far as the Common- 
wealth has an interest in those lands, Mr. Purdy informs us tliat they are 
already within the limits of Boston and subject to her jurisdiction. It is 



not suggested that any lack of authority exists on the part of the Back 
Bay Commissioners, to provide for their own territory, but if so, that 
authority can be readily enlarged. 

The condition of Church Street, so often referred to as the " Church 
Street Nuisance," should have no weight in this case. It is a portion of 
territory entirely within the limits of Boston, near the Common and the 
Public Garden. The nuisance has been occasioned by the filling of those 
lands which intervene between Church Street and the Bay. 

It is a duty of the city to provide a remedy. Mayor Norcross, in his 
annual address, accepts the situation. Roxbuiy, certainly should not be 
compelled to contribute to defray the expense of that remedy. Mr. Clapp 
testifies, that some time ago, there was a pond on Northampton Street in a 
state of nuisance ; if not in Boston, it was near to the South Channel. Thus 
hindrance after hindrance has been removed, and the improvements making 
by the cities of Roxbury and Boston, the Commonwealth, the Boston 
Water Power Company, the Boston and Providence Railroad Company, 
and by individual enterprise, in the territory known as the Back Bay, will 
soon rescue it to an improved sanitary condition, and it will cease to be 
alluded to as an incident in the argument for annexation. It is understood 
that the marsh lands in Roxbury are private property, and a change of 
jurisdiction does not of course operate a change of title. 

STREETS. 

Again : 

As to better streets and sidewalks and shade trees. You have viewed 
these avenues ; have not these wants also been provided for ? In 1865, 
Boston had one hundred and two miles of streets, accepted as such. 
Paved forty-four miles, macadamized twenty-four, graded and grav- 
elled thirty-four. To these should be added, perhaps, thirty miles 
more of unaccepted ways, including those located upon the Back Bay 
lands. You saw the condition of Roxbury with its thirty miles of streets. 
I submit with all confidence to the judgment and observation of any man 
who ever travelled a highway, that, to-daj^ the condition of the macada- 
mized and graded and gravelled streets of the city of Boston, most of 
them the outer range of avenues, will bear no comparison in excellence of 
condition with those within the limits of Roxbury; and if, by force of 
annexation, the condition of the avenues in Roxbury are to be reduced to 
what may be called a suburban condition, Roxbury will be immeasurably 
the suft'erer. 

These wants have been provided for; these causes have been removed. 

But, it is said, thoi-e may be conflicts of jurisdiction in the laying out of 
streets from Boston to Roxlniry. Such conflicts, in a given case, might 
exist, — but there is no evidence of any such conflict in point of fact. No 
case has occurred, so far as I liave known, for fifteen years, of any differ- 
ence of judgment between the authorities of Boston and the Board of 
Commissioners for the county of Norfolk. The interests of the cities in 
these respects, are mutual. The avenues on the Back Bay lands are 
already projected by the Commissioners of the Commonwealth, and as 



projected, they will be undoubtedly constructed, and to these Roxbury will 
conform. But where are the avenues to be located, of which Mr Whiting 
speaks ? Roxbury has already six or eight great thoroughfiires leading 
out to towns in the county ; and where can we have others ? Begin- 
ning at the easterly margin, we have the street known as East Street, — 
straight and sufficiently spacious ; the street towards Stoughtou Street, 
Dorchester, wide, and lined with dwellings on either side; then Grove 
Hall Avenue, Shawmut Avenue, the highway to Jamaica Plain, Tremont 
Street, the highway to Brookline, the Mill Dam Road and Mill Dam 
Branch, all of them wide and spacious streets, some of them sixty feet wide 
or upwards, — avenues that will not require widening, — to the city of Rox- 
bury there will be no mutuality in taxation for the widening of the nar- 
I'ow streets of Boston. 

"Where, then, besides upon these avenues, whose condition is fixed 
beyond the power of change by the warehouses and structures and dwell- 
ings that line their boundaries, where else, through Roxbury, are we to 
get these fancied wide and magnificent avenues leading out from Boston 
to Roxbury, which Mr. Whiting sees in his vision of annexation? Make 
the most of it, there could hardly be more than one or two of them at the 
Back Bay lands, and these would be likely to diverge when they approached 
the Highlands, or seek the direction of Brookline. 

So far from any conflict of jurisdiction about streets and avenues, the 
chances of such conflict are daily diminishing. 

CONTROL OF FOREIGN POPULATION. 

Next, at former hearings, the petitioners alleged, not so much that Bos- 
ton wanted land, as a native population; and this argument was artfully 
addressed to the timidity of the rich, and the prejudices of nationalities. 
Time with its scythe whicli has been so perpetually mowing down the rea- 
sons for annexation, has at last swept this also into oblivion. For, after a 
few years of growth, the census determined that the foreign element pre- 
vailed in Roxbury quite as extensively as in Boston. 

I quote from pages 18, 19 and 20 of Mr. Avery's recent argument in 
which he furnishes the statistics. 

" Roxbury stands figure by figure, shade by shade, almost in the precise position of Bos- 
ton : about fifty per cent foreign and fifty per cent native, with a little in favor of Boston, 
the per cent of native here being a little larger than in Roxbury. Out of 733 births in the 
city of Roxbury during the year 1863, there were but 164 American — less than one-quarter 
of the whole. 

Turn to the statistics of Boston and but a little better state of things exists — 1,230 out of 
5,255 births were of native parents; the balance were foreign. 

The following table shows the proportion of children born of native and 
foreign parents in the two cities for the three j^ears, (1860 to 1863). 

PROPORTION OF CHILDREN OF AMERICAN PARENTAGE. 

Born in Boston in 1860 1 to 3.98 

" " Roxbury in " 1 to 4.09 

" " Bo.ston in 1862 1 to 3.9 

" " Roxbury in " 1 to 3.93 

2 



10 

Born in Boston in 1863 1 to 4.27 

" " Roxbury in " 1 to 4.46 

WHOLE NUMBER OF CllILDREX BORN IN THE TWO CITDiS. 

1S60, whole number of children born in Boston, 5,182 ; American parentage, 1,302 

" " " " Roxbury, 785; " 192 

1862, " " " Boston, 5,258; " 1,345 
" " " " Roxbury, 786; " 200 

1863, " " " Boston, 5,255; " 1,230 
" " " " Roxbury, 733; " 164 

He adds : 

" If there be anything in the suggestion, if it be true that the control of affairs in Boston 
is likely to come into the hands of the foreign population, it is equally true that by the an- 
nexation of Roxbury, you only make that certain which is now but possible." 

"I do not say, he adds, that you desire to ' Americanize Boston,' to use the flash phrase 
of the lobby; but if j^ou do, the annexation of Roxbury will not tend to do it. The figures 
will not warrant any such conclusion; the facts, will not bear out the proposition, and 
therefore I leave it, praj'ing you, if you ever consider it, to take the simple figures as they 
exist and determine the question for yourselves from them, rather than from me." . 

COCHITUATE WATER. 

Next. — Another reason alleged in those days, for annexation was, that 
Boston desired to increase the number of her citizens who will take and 
pay for Cochituate Water. 

The report of the Water Board in the appendix to the present Commis- 
sioners' Report efl'ectually silences that argument. 

On the 19th page the Commissioners say : 

"If Roxbury should be furnished from our works and the present rate of increase in her 
population continues, the limit of our water supply would be reached in a little less than 
five years. 

" The ijrcsent conduit they say, when put in good repair, can safely convey only 18,000,000 
gallons per day." 

"Under these circumstances and conditions (they add), we are very positive in the opinion 
that if any material increase to our present stock of water is needed, we must seek an addi" 
tional source and convey it to the city by an entirely independent conduit." 

Mark this — an additional source — an entirely independent conduit. 

And are there not rivers, ponds and sources of supply far less distant 
from Roxbury than Lake Cochituate? And cannot that city as readily 
command those sources without the aid of Boston, as with it? Have not 
Charlostown and Cambridge and Salem provided for their necessities? 
And where in Massachusetts, can be found a more abundant supply of 
pure water than flows from the springs and fountains, ponds and rivers 
near the Blue Hill range, or the ponds of Sharon, and the like, but a few 
miles distant from the doors of their dwellings? "Are Abana and 
Pharpar better than all the rivers of Israel?" If the conduit is not 
large enough now, of what a^ail Avould it be to turn the sources of Concord 
River into Lake Cochituate, as Mr. Whiting proposes. Roxbury already 
has an acqucduct from .Jamaica Pond which supplies a portion of the city. 

Let Roxbury adopt the plan of an indcpeudent supply, and for aught I 



11 

know tlie day may not be far distant when Boston herself may wish to 
avail of the surplus waters which Roxbury can furnish. 

Why then subject the citizens of Roxbury to bear their poi'tion of the 
heavy water debt of Boston, if there must be new sources aud independent 
conduits, even though the new work be borne at the joint expense of 
S6oO,000 more? Is there any economy in the city of Roxbury paying her 
share for mains and conduits which were calculated for a city of 250,000 
inhabitants, from a lake fifteen or twenty miles distant, with expensive 
reservoirs on Beacon Hill, at South Boston, Brookline and Newton? 
Viewed as a business operation, would it not be imposing an unreasonable 
burden of taxation upon the -citizens of Roxbury, and this also, without 
any corresponding advantages to the citizens of Boston ? 

Thus time sweeping on like a river, has borne this water question also, 
to that ocean which leaves no wreck behind. In regard to protection 
against lire, the Mayor's Report refers to three steam fire engines already 
the property of the city, and reservoirs are being provided adequate to 
their wants. 

The advantages to be derived in facilitating the negotiation of mort- 
gages, has also ceased, in a considerable measure, to arrest the attention 
of an5'body. 

And so far from being opposed mainly by city officers of Roxbury, as 
alleged in the hearing in 1852, and reiterated by Mr. Whiting at this hear- 
ing, it would seem by the roll of past mayors, who argue and testify here, 
that past officers certainly were quite as active in favoring this movement 
as are present officers in opposing it. 

EFFECT ON VALUE OF REAL ESTATE. 

Another argument, strongly pressed in years past, but about which we 
hear less and less as the tendency of the argument is developed, is that it 
would improve the value of the real estate iu Roxbury. 

To this, our answer is that the effect might be not to improve but to 
depress, or quite as probably it would produce no very material effect in 
this respect. What would be the result, is purely matter of speculation. 
One might argue that the heavier burden of taxation which must devolve 
upon the houses and lauds of Roxbury, would cause these estates to be 
less sought for than now, and that efforts would be again made such as 
were made thirty years ago, on the part of wealthy citizens, to remove 
outside the limits of the city and avoid its taxation. Another would say 
that if the Highlands of Roxbury are to prove so attractive to the wealthy 
classes of Boston as Mr. Whiting supposes, demand would cease for the 
lands now owned by the Commonwealth in the new city of Back Bay. If 
the effect were to leave in that city large tracts of unoccupied lands, for 
which there should be no demand, with heavy and burdensome taxation, 
lands held by wealthy proprietors in large parcels, waiting long years for 
opportunities for sale, as was the case for so many years at Soutli Boston 
and East Boston, the consequences would be such as should be deprecated. 

But whether one way or the other, it is an unworthy motive for legisla- 
tion. For the demand created in one locality depresses the interest of a 



12 

less favored locality, and the Legislature has a higher province than to 
operate upon the graduation of market values. And were the theory cor- 
rect that the values of Roxbury lands in large tracts would be enhanced, 
which is denied, still it is manifest that such inflation would, if it occurred 
at all, be a sudden result, and though it should affect the prices on any one 
day, or at any one time, and benefit the landholder of that day, yet this 
influence would cease the moment that market value was once determined. 

Now the landholder in any one year is no better entitled to this prospec- 
tive, tentative, speculative benefit than in any other. 

So far from giving countenance to such motives of legislation it is the 
duty of judicious legislation to regard rather the interests of the great 
masses. These are they who need your protection. The inquiry is not 
whether it will raise the value of the lands of the man of wealth and 
leisure who may have tracts to sell, but whether it will confer upon the 
mass of the people better facilities for obtaining good homes and moderate 
for them (the middling classes) the onerous burdens of rent and taxation. 



It was one of Mr. "Whiting's complaints in years gone by, that the citi- 
zens of Eoxbury were indifferent to their municipal interests. Well, 
to-day, he says, Boston herself lacks energy. Thus the opinions of to-day 
follow close upon the heels of those of yesterday. There can be no doubt 
that the effect produced by a large city is to paralj'ze and restrict the influ- 
ence of the individual voter, and more particularly of the citizen in the 
humbler walks of life. To secure the greater accountabilitj", the more 
direct control by the voter in local afftxirs, is the true New England policy. 
In a population of 28,000, represented by the fraction 1-28, the influence of 
the voter in all local matters is practically far proportionably greater than 
in a city of 220,000, represented by a fraction 1-220. 

At one period of this discussion Roxbury claimed, I think, the owner- 
ship in a very considerable portion of Back Bay. As the sands of the hour- 
glass have run their course, this also has dropped out of the discussion, 
for the Supreme Court decided adversely to her claims. 

In years that are past, some desired better accommodations at Dedham 
Court, and such have been provided. 



Then they labored diligently to convince the voters of Roxbury that their 
city was irretrievably plunged into the abyss of debt, so that its rescue was 
almost hopeless. What says Mayor Lewis in this year's Message ? 

"A year flince the city debt was $1,040,195; this year, $948,195. 'I congratulate the citi- 
zens,' he says, ' th.it the first step for many years, in this direction, has been taken,' referring 
to the reduction of the debt." 

He adds : 

"Were it not for the introduction of pure water, I know no object for which the public 
debt should ever again bo permanently increased." 



13 



PRESENT CONDITION. 

I will read the words of Mayor Lewis as to the condition of aflfairs in 
that city : 

" The "Watch and Police Department, although pmall, considering the extent of our terri- 
tory and its contiguity to the metropolis, is composed of men of sound morals, correct hab- 
its, firm in the discharge of duty, indefatigable in the detection of criminals and the preven- 
tion of crime. I hesitate not to say that as a whole, the effectiveness of our day and night 
police is unsurpassed by any of similar extent, in any other city." 

Of the Schools, he says : 

"It is highly gratifying to know that these institutions are, as a whole, second to none in 
the Commonwealth." 

Of their Forest Hills Cemetery, he says : 

" Its attractiveness is still on the increase. It cannot be otherwise than that the interest 
of our people in the cemetery will increase day hy day. Sucli being the case, with judicious 
management, it must become tlie most attractive spot in our neighborhood, combining as it 
does, such essentials to this end, as sacred associations, natural beauty and the embellish- 
ments of art. 

With these facts spread before you, gathered from the highest of official 
sources, can it be possible that a wise legislator would disturb this con- 
dition of unsurpassed prosperity? Can anyone believe that these schools, 
these important and manifold departments of municipal interests, would 
be as well administered should Roxbury be converted to a precinct, at the 
most remote point, on the extreme outer wing of the joint metropolis? 

SUBURBAN CONDITION. 

I do not too strongly state the condition of " a suburb." The Commis- 
sioners' Report, upon which much stress seems to be placed, uses language 
which will be applicable to Roxbury, more especially when such a scheme 
of annexation should be consummated. It says : 

" Like all suburbs, the residences of the poorest of its population in character and 
intelligence." 

I And no ftiult with the truthfulness of that remark ; but it seems an 
unusual motto to decorate therewith the banquet hall of annexation, to 
which Roxbury is so persistently, year by year, invited. 

MORE LAND. 

But the petitioners say also that Boston wants more land, that Boston 
wants more vacant land, and vacant land is what the residents of Roxbury 
have to furnish; and so here is a want and a supply — a most happy coin- 
cidence. One wants land, the other has it ; has it to keep, has it to sell. 

Now, as the city of Boston has seldom permitted her wants to be known 
at any of the hearings on this subject, and as the principal managers 
here have taken upon themselves, as citizens of Roxburyj both to make 
known the wants of Boston, and to provide for them, it is a remarkable 
circumstance in the case, that the principal demonstration upon the subject 



14 

of both the wauts of Boston, and the supply of those wants by Roxbury, 
comes from the petitioners from Roxbury herself, and the supply exceeds 
the demand. 

Now what are the facts in relation to the area of Boston? 

The appendix to the Commissioners' Report, estimates the area as 
follows : 

In available unimproved land in Boston proper 340 acres. 

Already built upon and improved, about 630 " 

Area East Boston .. 660 acres. 

Built upon, etc 170 " 

Available and unimproved 490 " 

Flats improved and unimproved 543 " 

Total, ultimately available 1,033 acres. 

The upland 304 acres, and marsh 416 acres of Breed's Island 720 acres. 

The filled area of South Boston is 675 acres. 

Built upon and improved 285 " 

Leaving of available unimproved land 390 acres. 

Flats on the northerly shore, about 600 acres. 

They add : 

" When the wliole territory within the present limits of Boston, is peopled as densely as 
the portions now built upon, our population will amount to near 600,000. 
"As yet that population has reached only 192,000." 

If Ave inquired whence comes this statement that Boston wants more 
land, it would seem as though the object was to annex Boston to Boxbury, 
rather than Roxbury to Boston. 

Is it then that Boston wants more land, or that " more land'' Avants 
Boston? 

True it is that in some favored localities, large dwelling-houses are con- 
verted into stoi'es, and as the channels of trade change, warehouses again 
become the tenements of the poorer portion of the citizens. But these 
stores occupy but comparatively little area. And by the filling of the 
Back Bay and flats, land has been provided quite equal to the demand. 
The project is noAV entertained of filling three hundred or four hundred 
acres more of flats at South Boston. Now if Boston wants land, does she 
want land at Roxbury ? Not at all. The land which is serviceable to her 
is land in immediate proximity to her centre. Hence, the wealthy congre- 
gate upon the new-made lands near Beacon Street and the Public Garden. 
The working classes have no alternative but to be content with dwellings 
such as they can procure in proximity to their daily labor and avocations. 
Neither of these classes have yet manifested any desire to appropriate the 
Highlands of Hoxl)ury. Notwitlistunding the horse-cars have frequent 
trips, those lughlands are not quite so accessible as the petitioners repre- 
sent. It is convenience of access which is most to be desired. And with 
such access, there is no objection to separate municipalities. 

This article from the Neio York Herald of yesterday,, illustrates the 
tendency to choose those neighborhoods most easily accessible : 



15 



" GROWTH OF BROOIvLYN. 

" The rapidity with which Brooiilyn is being huilt up is really wonderful. A quarter of a 
century ago it was little more than a good-sized village, and now it is the third 
city in the Union. It has an opera house, theatres, a park, and a Common Council 
which supports jobs — so that it possesses all the elements of civilization. If it continues 
to progress in the same ratio for the next ten years, it may even dispute with us our metro- 
politan preeminence. Jersey City and Hoboken are also making rapid strides in population 
and wealth, with a prospect of still greater progress, from the fact that thousands of acres 
of its swamp lands are now being reclaimed by capitalists. This will prove a vast additional 
area for building, manufacturing and agricultural purposes. Owing to the narrow confor- 
mation of our island and the difficulty of getting up town with any degree of comfort, much 
of the population which we might get will necessarily continue to flow in these other direc- 
tions. They are more convenient to Wall Street and other business centres, and as commer- 
cial men have no time to lose, they naturally choose the neighborhoods which are most easily 
accessible. It is obvious that unless increased facilities of up-town travel are provided the 
growth of our city will be entirely arrested in favor of that of our sister cities." 

Thus the true interest of Roxbury is to be as close as possible in prox- 
imity to Boston, but under a separate and distinct municipal organization. 

If Boston wants land, it is for habitations. If there is to be a benefit 
derived in increase of population, other cities and towns would welcome 
those benefits no less than Roxbury. 

The truth is, that an inspection of that city, of its streets, its long ranges 
of wooden houses and its varied conditions shows that there is a great 
equality in the public expenditures of that city, and that a great inequality 
mtist exist between those of Roxbury and Boston. 

INEQUALITY OF WEALTH AND TAXATION. 

The Commissioners' Report, on the 11th page, exhibits this contrast of 
conditions : 

The property of Boston $1,934 per liead. 

" Roxbury 831 " " 

The tax in Boston $30.91 " " 

" " Roxbury 17.84 " " 

Now, as the taxinRoxbury in 1805, when these statistics were had, was in 
rate about twenty-one, and at a much larger rate than usual, while Boston did 
not raise sufficient to meet her annual expenditure, it would be fair to say 
that the amount of tax in Boston, per head, was as thirty-two to sixteen, 
or double what it was in Roxbury. 

If the rate in both cities should be considered the same upon a thousand 
dollars, yet Roxbury, by entering into this expensive partnership, would 
be held very properly to pay her full share towards a government twice as 
expensive as her own ; and would only await an increase of her resources 
to accumulate the same double burden of taxation. The result would be 
that Roxbury would not be entitled to an expenditure in her precinct equal 
to her present local expenditure, even though she should pay the same tax 
as now on her present valuation. 

It is obvious that if Roxbury is anuexed to a city twice as expensive as 
her own, and that expense is occasioned by objects of expenditure for 



16 

which she has no occasion herself to provide, she would not for that 
reason be exempt from her full share of the joint burdens. 

After having borne her proportional part of those extra burdens for 
which she has now no occasion to provide, the share of appropriations for 
improvements which would fall to Roxbur}^ must be much less than she 
realizes from her present independent taxation, and which she now applies 
to her own separate use. 

The effect of annexation would increase her taxes, appropriate a lai'ge 
portion of the taxes thus paid by her citizens, to objects of joint expense 
towards which she now makes no contribution whatever, and, by conse- 
quence, reduce the relative share of the joint moneys to be disbursed in her 
own precinct. 

When tlie Commissioners report that the relative amount of property 
per head is in Boston equal to about .$2,000 per head and in Roxbury about 
$800 per head, and this is the ratio reckoned as the possession of each 
man, woman and child, in those cities, it exhibits no such marked similarity 
of conditions as might at first sight appear — more of contrast than of 
similarity — such would doubtless prove to be the fact, in all the adjacent 
cities and towns. 

They are all content with their present boundaries if all arc retained. 
Each has a "Sparta" ample in extent, variety and resources, and they 
would prefer to embellish and improve their own within their present har- 
monious proportions. Disturb this harmon}'- in a single case and these 
halls, year after year, will be the scene of interminable antagonisms. 

ALLEGED SIJIILARITIES OF CONDITION. 

As the traveller finds his way from the interior of the county of Norfolk 
towards the city of Boston, and passes through Dorchester, Brookline, 
West Roxbury, or that extensive territory which comprises the southerly 
and central portions of the city of Roxbury, and looks upon the broad 
fields, the verdant lawns, the ways and walks, sees here and there the 
stately mansion, the comfortable house, the humble dwelling, the orchards 
and gardens, the wooden houses witli their liberal areas and enclosures, 
scattered along the roadside, he surely can discern no contrast in the 
apparent and general conditions of all these extended suburbs. In the 
midst of slight diversities, he will discern no apparent similarity to the 
narrow streets of the dense and crowded city, but a striking uniformity of 
territorial, which will prove a true type of their municipal condition. And 
surely it is not until he has descended from the highlands and reached 
almost the heart of the lower ward of the city of Roxbury, —in immediate 
proximity to the boundary line of the city of Boston, — that he begins to 
trace here and there, slight resemblances and uniformities, for even there, 
tliere exist more contrasts than similarities. In order, then, that we may 
not ramble over too wide a field, let us confine our attention for a moment 
to this lower ward, the first approach from the city near the boundai-y line 
of Norfolk, in closest proximity to this city, where the population is most 
dense of all, with its places of trallic, stores, shops and manufacturing 
establishments, its low^er lands and level streets ; streets radiating from a 



17 

convenient centre till they meet the street at the Neck, the remote and 
outer gateway of the city of Boston, next to the confines of the marsh and 
creek. 

It is here, in this lower ward, — that little strip of land on the boundary 
line of Suflblk and Norfolk, where he sees the factories, and hears the 
bustle of traffic, here, if anywhere, assuredly, the supposed identity, 
similarity, or community of interest of these respective cities may be 
deemed most strongly to consist. Here, if anywhere, the argument 
derived from expectant and increased conveniences would find its chief 
support. Because here, if anywhere, these wants centre. If water is 
wanted, it is in these manufacturing establishments down here. If 
there is drainage required, it is down here, by the Back Bay and South 
Bay, by tlie creek and the channel, by Eoxbury Brook and Stony Brook, 
from the low and level and marshy lands, to the bays and brooks and chan- 
nels ever3' where around. 

What then w^ould be the reasons adduced in their application to the 
question of removing that single lower ward from the jurisdiction of the 
county of Norfolk and annexing it to the city of Boston? I discuss not 
their merits, but the nature of these assumed benefits and conveniences to 
be derived to that lower ward. One says, " We need a supply of water." 
Another replies, "We have Jamaica Pond water already." Says another, 
" We want the Cochituate." A third replies, "It cannot be supplied." 
Saj^s another, " The water debt has never been paid." If annexed, you do 
but assume the burden, and new sources and new mains must incur addi- 
tional expense : and thus we find these varied intei-ests and opinions. 
Then, drainage. It is said that Roxbury must drain through the city of 
Boston. True, it is, that they may drain through channels that are within 
the jurisdiction of the harbor master of the city of Boston. But are there 
not in close proximity, the Back Bay, the South Bay, the brooks and the 
channels, and should any difficulty arise in the confiict of local jurisdiction, 
is not ample power reposed in this Legislature to harmonize or remove all 
minor differences? Sanitary arrangements are subject to the control of 
the general laws, and in these both cities are alike interested. 

We confidently submit, upon the view and the evidence, that, had it been 
proposed before the Committee on Towns to set off this lower ward from 
the city of Roxbury, and the county of Norfolk, and annex it to the city of 
Boston, reasons a thousandfold more cogent, even in the matter of these 
partial and local conveniences, exist, without reference to the larger and 
more important considerations, to retain it in its present jurisdiction, 
rather than to justif>^ its annexation. And as we pass beyond that lower 
ward, and approach the more elevated and central portion of the city of 
Roxbury, the I'easons for annexation become proportionably less, until, in 
the central and southerly portions of its territory, viewed as the basis of 
argument, they not only vanish altogether, but overwhelmingly prepon- 
derate in favor of the existing jurisdiction and condition. 

If then, the case presented by the petitioners, in any or all of its aspects, 
would not even justify the severance of a ward, how utterly unworthy and 
inadequate must reasons like these appear to be, when it is proposed not 

3 



18 

to sever a ward, but to convert a great city to a w^ard, to annul and 
dissolve this ancient and honored municipality, oblitei'ate its name and 
organization, sunder its relations to the count}^ and disturb and dissever 
tlie ties, political, historic, municipal and suburban, which are the surest 
guaranty of future usefulness. 

KOXBURY AS A CITY. 

For Roxbury, In its local position, its territorial arrangements, its gen- 
eral conformation, its shape and boundaries, its elevations and rural 
advantages, the confluence and convergence of its ways to one centre, in 
its homes and history, in the cliaracter of its population, in its individ- 
uality, unity and identity, in all its affinities, in all these respects, in 
every respect, has the most extraordinary adaptation to the uses of a dis- 
tinct and separate and independent municipality ; and this act of annexa- 
tion will extinguish a prosperous, well organized and ancient municipality. 

ALLEGED IDEXTITY. 

What force is there in the argument that annexation is expedient 
because of an assumed similarity and identity of interest and condition ? 
Such local conditions as to territory as seriously impair its convenient use 
may, in extreme cases, warrant changes of town lines. But mere similar- 
ity of pursuit, of business and traffic, of social position, association or 
sympathy, would not furnish sufficient reasons for abandoning, in any 
case, the system of town organization, but quite the reverse. For, after 
all, these county and township lines must exist somewhere, and because 
arbitrary in their original adoption they are not therefore to be subject to 
arbitrary changes, but the rather, because arbitrary, therefore permanent. 

But wherein does this alleged identity exist? Not, surely, in commer- 
cial conditions, because in wharves, docks, channels and commercial con- 
ditions. East Boston and Chelsea, Charlestown, Cambridge, Dorchester, 
Neponset, Commercial Point and South Boston would be preferred before 
her — for they tell us that the waters of the marsh and canal are stagnant, 
and the drain and the sewer must seek, through the instrumentality of 
this very act, an outlet over the flats belonging to the city of Boston. 

If a comparison were instituted between Roxbury and Charlestown, with 
its limited area and dense population, or with the surrounding towns, 
Dorchester, Brookline, Somerville, Brighton, West Roxbury, Cambridge, 
Chelsea, and the like, we might discover no greater dissimilarity on their 
part in commercial conditions tlian those which exist between Roxbury 
and Boston, — for Roxbury has a home industry peculiarly its own, and 
localized upon its soil. And had we sought evidence in relation to the 
travel wliich reaches the city daily by season ticket from Lynn or Salem, 
Newton, Dedham, West Roxbury, Quincy, Brookline, and the like, we 
should find no such evidence of dissimilarity of condition, or difl'erence of 
interest, as between these and Roxbury, sucli as Avould warrant the stress 
that is laid upon this branch of tlie case of tlie petitioners. 

That Roxbury has a home industry, peculiarly its own, is exhibited in 



19 

the report of the statistics of industry of Massachusetts, for the year I860. 
There, on many pages, you will find almost every department of industry 
represented; probably as many branches as can be found in any city of equal 
population in the land, with a large investment of capital, with its annual 
products of great value, and giving employment to 2,876 pei'sons. 

I do not know the proportion of employees to population which would 
be the average for a distinctive city but it would appear that 3,000 out of 
28,000 would suffice to show that a local home industry was resident within 
its boi-ders. 

And while upon these statistics of alleged similarity to the warehouses 
and wharves of Boston, we may note that Roxbury contains four hundred 
and thirty-six acres of farming land, seventy-eight acres of unimproved 
lands, three hundred and twenty-two acres of English mowing, eighty-four 
and one-half acres devoted to market-gardening, one hundred and fifty- 
four and one-half acres of salt marsh mown. Trees cultivated for their 
fruit, 18,598. 

It would seem as though Charlestown and the like could recognize 
Roxbury as one of the rural suburban districts. 

Now there is a territorial division of labor which the petitioners do not 
appreciate. Is it nothing to manage one's own municipal aftairs in tlie 
most direct manner ? 

TAX ON STOCK US TRADE. 

It has been urged, also, on the part of some of the petitioners, that this 
act of annexation would obviate, so far as that precinct is concerned, those 
inequalities in the system of taxation which are necessarily incident to the 
taxing of the stock in trade of non-residents. But Roxbury now avails 
herself of this general rule in respect to the manufacturing establishments 
within her precinct ; and these inequalities, if they can be removed at all, 
should become the subject of general or specific legislation; and these dis- 
parities in the general S3'stem should l)e diminished by a more minute sub- 
division of local jurisdiction, rather than aggravated by a fusion and 
commingling of these municipal interests. 

The surrounding districts are subjected to the like experience, and I refer 
to the argument of Mr. Avery, in which it is apparent that Roxbury suf- 
fers less detriment in this regard than many of the towns and cities in this 
vicinity. Annexation, so far from mitigating, would only aggravate the 
evil and inequality which arises in the execution of the general laws, for it 
is on account of the disparity in the condition of cities and towns that this 
inequality exists. 

OTHER ALLEGED CON\'ENIENCES. 

And so we might go on and speak of the comparative conveniences of 
the Courts, the City Hall, the Library, the Post-Office, and the like. And 
what would be the result? Conveniences on the one side, attended with 
corresponding detriment and disadvantages on the other. In their varied 
aspects, some benefits, some detriments — circumstances which weighed 
In the balance alone, and apart from all the moi-e important and govern- 



20 

mental relations, so equivocal in their character, so doiibtful in their 
expediency or preponderance, capable of being supplied in so many modes 
and directions, that one citizen might verj^ properly prefer the one, and 
another citizen, under the same or similar ciixumstances, would prefer the 
other. 

TAX OF BOSTON. 

The very great increase of taxation, during the present year, which the 
necessities of Boston require, would afford no inducement to any city to 
tolerate annexation. An increase in a single year of an additional tax of 
two millions is a serious item, even though a part of it be a State tax, and 
demands the exercise of a rigid economy and the rejection of expensive 
experiments in legislation. And why should any citizen of Roxbury be 
compelled to contribute to the expenditures of the city of Boston ? Turn 
now to the banquet proposed for the people of Roxbury, and say one by 
one, why should any citizen of Roxbury contribute a dollar in their aid. 

I extract from the address of Mayor Norcross, to the City Council of 
Boston, in January last, these words : 

" The town of Boston never allowed a public debt to accumulate. The only debt trans- 
ferred from the town to the city government, but little exceeded $71,000, which was wholly 
incurred by the cost of two prisons and a court-house, then in the course of erection. Since 
that time we have had a constantly [growing debt, and now it assumes large proportions. 
More than thirty years ago, our predecessors in ofiice attempted to arrest its progress, and 
return to the more prudent policy of the town 

" The debt has been since increased from the sum of $1,078,088.28 to its present amount." 

(The present amount is about thirteen millions.) 

" To show the extent to which our expenditures h.ave exceeded our resources, from taxa- 
tion, there must be added to this increase of the debt, all sums which have been received 
from the sales of public lands. These lands, which have heretofore been a source of 
no inconsiderable revenue, are now mostly sold, and in the future, we can expect but a small 
income from them." 

He then enumerates some of the measui-es which engaged the attention 
of the last City Council, and furnishes some of the estimates of their cost. 

Why, to any of these, examined one by one, should Roxbury contribute 
a dollar in taxation ? 

EXPENSES OF BOSTON. 

South Boston Flats, 9,000,000 to $20,000,000 

Church Street 500,000 

Chestnut Hill 1,000,000 

Extension Broadway . 1,000,000 

Hospital, Winthrop 600,000 

New Court House 500,000 

Girls' School , , . . 200,000 

Monument 160,000 

Overseers Poor 100,000 

Fort Hill, residue at public expense, cost unknown. 

UIPROVEMENT. 

I ask again, to all these ought Roxbury to contribute a dollar? They 
are estimates only. City Hall estimates are apt to be altogether too low, 



21 

and it is difficult to say whether these projects would involve an outlay of 
twenty-five or one hundred millions, but it is not difficult to prove that no 
citizen of Roxbury should be taxed for one of them. 

In future years the widening of the nai-row streets of Boston must 
occasion a vast expenditure. 

In Roxbury that expenditure will be comparatively light, except upon 
some cross-i'oads or lanes. 

In the Auditor's Report of the City of Boston for '65 and '66, the amount 
paid for the widening of streets, is $U2,000.00. 

In the last Auditor's Report of Roxbury, the amount paid during the 
year for similar purposes, was only ^890.01. 

Since the year 1822, the city of Boston has paid four and a half millions 
of dollars for the widening of streets, without including the cost of filling 
in and grading said streets, or the constructing of bridges, or the cost of 
laying out and grading streets on the city's public lands. This expendi- 
ture was principally in the old part of the city. 

EFFECT UPON THE TAXATION OF EOXBUKY. 

And yet day by day more widenings are required, heavier damages 
demanded, and heavier taxes are paid. 

And why should the people of Roxbury, any man of them, contribute to 
this expenditure? 

It is too late to charge debts for improvements, to future generations. 

Compare the expenses of support of inmates of the Institutions. 

The inmates of these Institutions in Boston, supported at her expense, 
number 1,310. 

Perhaps some one can tell the number of inmates in the Almshouse at 
Roxbury — probably thirty. 

And if Boston is willing to incur the residue of the expense of the Fort 
Hill improvement, and the filling of three hundred acres of flats on the 
north shore of South Boston, from the shore to Fort Independence, what 
advantage is to be derived to the citizen of Roxbury, that the channel of 
his scanty commerce should be contracted, and his taxes pay for it. Are 
not great public improvements needed at the north end of Boston ? and 
shall Roxbury pay for these, also? Shall she bear the expense of harbors 
when she has more farms than wharves ? 

Shall she abandon her cemetery to stranger hands, and commit her 
paupers to Deer Island? 

It has occurred to your Committee in this balance of minor conveniences 
and inconveniences on which the petitioners base their case, that many of 
the streets of both cities have the same names, and here again you pro- 
duce a temporary confusion. On the thirty-second page of Mr. Avery's 
argument there is a statement concerning a Grammar School fund of Rox- 
bury, which will one day amount, by its accumulation, to .$1,000,000; and 
how are you to provide for the application of this and of the Davis fund, 
when the city no longer exists ? 

In one of the defeats of the Scots, under the Earl of Hume, in their 
descent from the Highlands, the commonalty of Scotland termed his expe- 



22 

dition an "7?Z Boad." The people of Eoxbiiry will find this descent 
from the Highlands an " ill road for them." 

Take it as you will, the true line of demarcation is not of dormitories 
or of the farming or landed interest, or of taxation, or marsh, or river, or 
solid land. It is the line of commercial interest, that which most com- 
pactly embraces the interests of commerce, — the harbor in its relations 
to the West and the lakes, the sea, the wharf, the "hub," the depot; — 
the dormitory, last and least important of all. 

INCREASE IN VALVE OF KOXBURY LANDS. 

Now it is in no invidious sense that I assert that schemes which are 
advocated, if they are so advocated, and otherwise this objection is no 
account, — I say, schemes which are pressed, in order to enhance the values 
of real estate, if such be the expectant result, tend to the promotion of 
class interests, as landed interests. And such interests ought not to invoke 
the aid of legislation to the overthrow of that general policy which protects 
them all. 

The true questions are — will such changes equalize the divisions of 
labor? Will they diffuse comforts to all classes? Will they enable them 
to exercise the largest and most direct participation in affairs ? How shall 
we best give utterance to the voice of the people, high and low, rich and 
poor, white and black ? 

DOES EXIGENCY EXIST? 

The case of the petitioners, if within the pale of legislation, stands, if it 
stands at all, upon certain general, grave and well understood public con- 
siderations, disclosing clearly to the legislative mind and judgment such 
great and paramount political and public exigency as is proportioned to 
the magnitude of the result to be attained. Temporary or local conveni- 
ences, the preponderance of such conveniences, may in extreme cases 
warrant a change of town boundaries ; but such equipoise or preponder- 
ance, however substantial, could not of itself create an exigency such as 
would justify the proposed action, because, as the criterion which is to 
determine the expediency of this exercise of legislative judgment, you will 
require that the emergencj' and exigency proved shall be f\illy commen- 
surate with the importance of the contemplated result. 

I am not unmindful that divers citizens of Eoxbury, whose opinions are 
entitled to great weight and the most serious consideration, men of worth 
and wealth and wisdom, men who have been honored in the high places of 
the land, and who have the best interests of that locality at heart, men 
capable of judging of the matters whereof they speak, now, as at former 
hearings, have testified in favor of this scheme before your Committee — 
and that although they propose to submit this measure to the citizens of 
the respective cities for their approval or rejection, yet in the advocacy of 
the bill they hope or expect to find such majority in its favor at the polls 
as shall make your action Jinal. This proposed reference to the people of 
the cities, therefore, does not diminish the Aveight of responsibility 
devolved upon your Committee. You are the arbiters and representatives 



23 

of the legislative miud and will ; aud as in all other subjects of legislation, 
so here, intrusted as you are as legislators, with the control of the rights 
and interests of the entire Commonwealth, no less than with those Of the 
humblest citizen, of majorities no less than of minorities, you will not be 
justified in basing your action upon the opinions of any precinct however 
worthy, or of any day, however decisive, but will try and test these 
opinions, explore their foundations, examine these varied and hitherto 
indissoluble relations, trace them down the long years of New England 
history, and view that city in all the strange, eventful and providential 
vicissitudes of its growth, in the pride and vigor of its strength, the com- 
plicity of its vai'ied aud manifold relations, in its relations to its citizens, 
to the metropolis, the suburbs and adjacent municipalities, to the couuty 
and the State, to government and suflrage, to morals, culture and educa- 
tion, in its economical, social and political relations, to the day that is, and 
has been, and shall be. 

But, says one, opinions have changed ! Some of those who years ago 
were opponents of annexation, are now numbered among its advocates. 
And have not circumstances also changed? A few years ago Roxbury 
witnessed a season of vigorous growth aud unexampled prosperity. In 
the midst of sudden expansion and rapid development and transitions, 
sudden wants pressed in on every side; these, in their turn, brought 
temporary discontent — these wants and necessities seemed to exceed the 
immediate ability of the cit}' conveniently' to supply. Hy consequence, 
there ensued a city debt, rapid in its increase and of very considerable 
magnitude; just then, when this burdensome debt had been suddenly 
incurred, the outbreak of war arrests the progress of landed speculation, 
building enterprises languish, a national and military necessity creates 
new and unprecedented burdens, until the debt of the city reaches almost 
a million of dollars. Is it strange that they should seek a remedy? But 
can legislation aflbrd either remedy or relief? 

But some opinions there have changed ! And this is one of the reasons 
why we ask you to consider. It is because opinions change that we ask 
you not to change the condition of these favoi'ed and time-honored muni- 
cipalities. It is because opinions change that we would be slow to remove 
the ancient landmarks. 

CHANGE OF COUNTY LINES. 

To slight changes of town lines where there exists an arbitrary or 
inconvenient arrangement, we would most assuredly yield. Such partial 
evil may find its compensation in the general good ; but to organic clianges, 
to those which afl'ect the right, yea, the duty, of these municipalities to 
govern themselves, and tluit in the most direct and inexpensive manner, to 
changes wliich allect the attachments of the citizens to their towns and 
homes, and local pride and history, to their representation, taxation and 
political influeuce, their debt aud credit, their manifold municipal relations, 
much less to those which afiect their very organization, identity and 
existence, we would be slow to yield, unless upon the imminent pressure 
of that great, and paramount, and abiding public exigency, which silences, 



24 

in advance, all the conflicts of opinion, and supersedes and overrides and 
anticipates, as a foregone conclusion, the results of legislative action. 

ALLEGED COX^'EXIENCY. 

Can it be that the convenience of its citizens as to the Post-OfRce, the 
Courts, or the improvements of the waj^s would be in any wise advanced? 
Would the purity of elections be promoted? Could laws and ordinances 
of the city or the State be better adapted to such varied conditons ? Would 
taxes be assessed with greater uniformity? Would the varied local and 
commercial interests be more zealously guarded? Have the laws of the 
Commonwealth been better enforced in SutTolli than in Norfolk, in Boston 
than in Roxbury? Will the clamor of the suburbs, at East Boston and 
South Boston for improvements, find no echo within the remote precincts 
Of lloxbury ? Can the citizens understand the wants and apply the reme- 
dies, witli the same intelligence and discrimination to a city of such large 
dimensions and conflicting interests, as within borders with which they 
are familiar? 

DISTRICT SYSTEM. 

Let it not be said that these town and county lines may be broken down 
with impunity, because we have a district system for voting in political 
elections. The object of the district system was not to invade the old 
system of town representation, but rather to improve its efficiency. We 
cast our votes, once a year, at the polls, in senatorial and representative 
districts, but the influence exerted by a municipal organization difiers 
from this in all possible respects. It is deliberative in its character, — and 
all its affinities and relations centralize in the idea of home and domicil, 
for Avhich the district system, changing its artificial lines at each decennial 
period, could never compensate ; and this system of district representation 
is not to be made the instrument of destroying the towns themselves. 

DEBTS OF THE CITIES. 

It is a responsible duty devolved upon your Committee to appraise these 
great municipal interests. 

Judicious legislation is an important conservator of commercial and 
municipal credit. Each municipality should dischai'ge its own liens and 
pay its own debts. This computation, in its merger of certain or contin- 
gent liabilities, is, after all, but a single element, in the estimates and 
appraisements of this unlimited copartnership, and justice and public 
expediency, to minorities no less than to majorities, alike require that 
these ledger lines of debt and credit, between counties, towns and cities, 
should remain inviolate and unimpaired. 

CITY GOVEUNMENT OF UOSTON. 

Ought the arduous duties and responsibilities of the Mayor and Govern- 
ment of Boston to be augmented by this special or indefinite inci-ease? 
Burdened already with its debt of tliirteen millions, charged now with 
jurisdiction over a valuation of three hundred and seventy-two millions of 



25 

dollars, with an annual disbursement of many millions, and to-day, wit- 
nessing an unprecedented increase of two millions more in taxation in the 
present year, with its power and patronage, its varied enterprises for the 
widening of narrow streets, the regulating of free ferries, the construction 
of public buildings and water-mains ; its harbor and quarantines, and the 
islands of its jurisdiction; its public institutions, its wants and interests, 
can it be that any benefit can accrue to the State or the city, from a 
measure which must inevitably impose additional duties and w*eighty 
responsibilities beyond those which are necessarily incident to the regular 
growth of the city? Do the disclosures at Albany, in respect to the 
administration of the affairs of the city of New York, allure us to speedy 
action, by their results ? Must the city itself seek protection from its own 
laws and ordinances in the statutes of the State ? 

It was said that the duties now devolved upon the citj^ government 
of Boston required not this indefinite increase. 

Mayor Norcross, in his address, uses this language : 

"The expansion of our territory and the progress of business in all departments of 
industry are rapidly multiplying the duties of those who administer the municipal govern- 
ment. The Intelligent and faithful discharge of those duties already requires the almost undi- 
vided labor of all connected with the executive departments." 

In the inattention to the subject of local and municipal affairs, alleged to 
exist on the part of the citizens of Roxbury, except under the pressure 
and excitements of strongly-contested elections, we discern similarities to 
the condition of the more populous city; but this indift'erence must of 
necessity be increased by the project in question, and its tendencies are 
rather to be deprecated than encouraged. A cursory inspection of the 
Auditor's Report of the expenditures of the city of Boston, would convince 
the most skeptical, that to many of these expenses it would be unequal 
and unjust to compel the citizens of Roxbury to contribute. The wants of 
that city can be as advantageously supplied without as with annexation, and 
judicious and direct legislation can readily remove any impediments to her 
progress, and the separate and independent existence of that municipality 
be left, in every material respect, inviolate and undisturbed. 

COUNTY OF NORFOLK. 

We pass now to other considerations. The county of Norfolk is a 
county of comparatively small territorial extent, of only about one-quarter 
the area of the county of "Worcester, — there being seven counties, if I 
mistake not, of larger area, — with only one city and twentj^-two towns — 
not half as many towns as are comprised in "Worcester or Middlesex — 
with an identity of manufacturing and industrial interest quite as great, 
to say the least, as that which is supposed to exist between Boston and 
Roxbury — its population distributed in such equable proportions that the 
representation upon this floor is almost coincident Avith that of town 
representation. "When it was proposed to district the State in the appor- 
tionment of representation, and the diminution of the relative influence 
of the small towns as compared with that of the cities became a prominent 

4 



26 

topic for discussion, in order that the system might approximate as closely 
as possible to that of town representation, a somewhat remai-kable uni- 
formity was apparent in its application to the county of Norfolk. The 
city being entitled to only four members, no separation was required, 
(except in a single ward), in order to assign its representa.tive districts, 
and many of the towns of the count}' have one or more separate represen- 
tatives on this floor. Let me enumerate them, and then I will leave this 
branch of the subject without a word of comment : Dedhara, 1 ; West 
Roxbury, 1; Brookline, 1; Roxbury, 4; Dorchester, 2; Weymouth, 2; 
Quincy, 1 ; Braintree, 1 ; Randolph 1 ; Stoughton, 1 ; Foxborough, 
Wrentham and Medway, 2 ; Franklin and Bellingham, 1 ; Needham, Med- 
field and Dover, 1 ; Milton, Canton, Walpole and Sharon, 2. And I have 
named the whole of them, — the town of Cohasset, for ihese purposes, 
being embraced in the Plymouth district. This enumeration may suffice, 
to indicate that uniformity of condition, which makes their representative 
a true type of their municipal, and their municipal a type of their repre- 
sentative conditions. 

BOUNDARIES. 

A due regard to public right demands that the county lines should remain 
permanent. The policy of preserving these lines, as far as practicable, 
inviolate and unchanged, derives its sanction from the fact that some of 
these counties date their origin far back, in the earliest days of our colonial 
history, have been recognized in constitutional provisions and amendments, 
have not been to much extent the subject of legislative innovation, and 
have been guarded by the language of judicial interpretation. So unde- 
viating and stable has been this policy, that nine of the fourteen counties 
trace their origin to times prior to the year 1700, and during the last 
seventy years only two new counties have been established, and tliese are 
almost the only considerable county changes in the Commonwealth. 
These lines of extensive judicial jurisdiction and venue should be fixed and 
established, permanent and well understood. The county lines of Norfolk 
and Suffolk, even at the points alluded to, are now convenient and well 
defined, certainly far better than they would be were this act consummated. 
The area of the county is now no larger than is best adapted to the con- 
venient and economical administration of its varied affairs, with but one 
shire and one city, both easy of access, sufficiently convenient to each 
section of the county for public use, while in the means and fiicilities of 
ready and constant communication with the shire, Roxbury itself possesses 
advantages superior to that of ahnost every other town in the county, 
scarcely excepting some portions of the town intervening, and she is far 
less distant than the average of towns from the shire. If there is anything 
in tills assertion of a community of interest, history, jurisdiction and simi- 
larity of condition, all these require that the four ancient townships of 
Eoxbuiy, Dorchester, Dedham and Braintree, of whicli the county is so 
largely composed, should remain, as now, under one counuon jurisdiction. 
To remove from its already limited area and jurisdiction its only and 
flourishing city, in the full tide of its prosperity, with its twenty-eight 



27 

thousand inhabitants and twentj^-four millions of dollars in valuation, 
would disturb and disarrange everj' interest of the couuty, deprive it of a 
large share of its population and valution, remit it, hack again, in the years 
of its growth, and certainly without corresponding advantages to the 
cities whose jurisdictions are to be thus suddenly blended. 

LINES OF BOUNDARY. 

By such change the extent of the county lines between Norfolk and Suf- 
folk will be greatly increased — and if, in these matters of di-ainage, streets 
and avenues on the limited area of Back Bay, such absolute necessity exists 
for a single jurisdiction, to build a few avenues at most, over these unfilled 
lands and intervening marshes, how formidable must be the difliculties and 
obstacles to the improvements of the long years of the future, at that 
extended line of boundary. For now from Muddy Kiver and across to the 
canal or down to the sedgy margins of the marsh and creek, perhaps the 
boundary line would not exceed a mile in distance, while the circuitous, 
incouveuieut lines which would exist if lioxbury were sundered from its 
jurisdiction, sweeping from the Back Bay all around to the South Bay, 
would probably be seven miles in length. Instead of this proposed seven 
mile, horse-shoe shaped line of partition which would separate Roxbury, 
Dorchester, West Roxbury, and Brookline, towns which in their existing 
relations are increasing side by side, under lilvc circumstances, with a com- 
munity of interest, a Iraternity of association, a similarity of wants and 
conditions, in like improvements and like transitions, it is eminently desir- 
able and suitable, that these should be embraced, as now, under a common 
jurisdiction. 

Next, the effect of this act of annexation would be almost to detach the 
town of Brookline from the couuty of Norfolk. 

The question as presented by the petitioners, is one of comparative 
conveniences. As the result ' of this scheme, her town lines would 
become yet more identical with the county lines, and the grievances, 
alleged to exist at the limited Hue of boundary between Boston and Rox- 
bury would be devolved upon Brookline in tenfold proportion, for a high- 
way could hardly be located at her limits, without the concurrence of 
county, city and town jurisdictions. And as it is suited that the present 
community of interest should continue with Brookline and Dorchester, so 
also is it with West Roxbury, because, except during the last seventeen 
years, the history of the one has been the history also of the other. 

The act of the legislature contained in Sith section of Chap. 17 of the 
General Statutes, which provides that the County Commissioners af the 
County of Middlesex shall have jurisdiction within the city of Chelsea and 
the towns of North Chelsea and Winthrop, in the county of Suffolk, affords 
a practical illustration of the disadvantages under which such precincts 
labor, until they seek relief in special legislation. In a case like the pres- 
ent, in which legislative action is invoked, upon the ground of a seeming 
preponderance of temporary or local conveniences, it would seem as though 
some laree and substantial and paramount benefits should be conferred, or 
some serious pressure of wants should be relieved. 



28 



EFFECT UPON THE COUNTY. 

Should this act remove from the limits of the jurisdiction of Norfolk 
over tweuty-seveu millions of dollars in valuation; and should similar 
reasons prevail for annexinj^, also, portions of Dorchester, West Roxbury 
and Bi-ookline, those sections of the county in which probably there has 
been the largest increase of valuation during the last decennial period ; 
and were these precincts compelled, however reluctantly, to resort to this 
alternative of annexation, in order to adapt themselves to the exigencies 
thus unfortunately created, one-third or one-half of the entire valuation 
and ijopulatiou of the county might pass from its jurisdiction and control, 
while twenty or twenty-two towns would yet remain, with public build- 
ings and registries and county officers, jurors and grand juroi's, roads and 
bridges, in extensive districts, not decreased in a corresponding ratio, 
either in number, or the expenses of maintenance, although the number of 
days of labor in the transaction of business should be thereby lessened. 
Communities do not prefer to be thus remitted to their former conditions, 
or checked in their career of advancement. Would the farmers of Middle- 
sex, be willing to part with their Lowell, Cambridge, or Charlestown? 
AVould Essex be disposed to part with Salem, or Lynn, or Lawrence, or 
staid old Ipswich and Marblehead, or all of these, if they were all one city, 
and that their only one? Would Bristol be willing to sever her fortunes 
from New Bedford, or Fall River, or Taunton, as it stretches its jurisdic- 
tion from the river to the sea, or with all three, if all were combined in one ? 
Supposes any one that Hampden would be willing to part with the city of 
Springtield ? or think you that Worcester would yield that city which bears 
her honored name ? or Plymouth the old town-lauding of the race ? 

Cities may, under some circumstances, voluntarily agree to part with 
portions of their territory, with the sanction of the State, but I say that, 
under the system of administration of legislative aflairs, which has ever 
prevailed in these halls, town and cities are not to be permitted to vote 
themselves together. It is for you as legislators to determine these expedi- 
encies. These petitioners, in coming hither and asking that this project 
may be submitted to the people of these cities, by that very act assume 
that they hope such majority can be found as will render your action 
decisive. If, in the regular course of legislation, towns are not to deter- 
mine for themselves the expediency of their union, the responsibilities 
devolved upon your Committee are not in any respect diminished by the 
insertion of the clause subjecting the act to popular approval at the polls. 

COURTS. 

In 1858 it was found that the number of days of sessions of the courts 
in the respective counties were as follows: Suflblk, GC8; Middlesex, 311 ; 
Worcester, 204 ; Essex, 187 ; Norfolk, 78. 

These figures indicate the edcct which must ensue in accumulating busi- 
ness at the Courts of Suffolk, devolving upon those courts long and tedious 
double sessions, and all the Inirdcns incident to crowded dockets, — and 



29 

all this, when the distance between the shires does not exceed ten miles. 
So far from conceding that any considerable iuconveuieuces attend the 
present arrangement of the courts, we can safely maintain that the facts 
and the argument are all the other way. 

Concerning the courts, the public expenditures thereby created and the 
attendant expenses of jurors, witnesses and litigants, the entire frame- 
work of the administration of the law is based upon the system of judicial 
districts, local organizations, venue in counties, police courts in cities, 
county shires, and circuits ; such has been the policy alike in the adminis- 
tration of English and American law. The acknowledged advantages of 
fixed and permanent judicial districts in county organizations are suffi- 
ciently obvious. They promote the convenience of the citizen, tend to the 
distribution of business rather than its accumulation. 

Tor illustration of the effect of annexation upon the conveyances of real 
estate, their titles, mortgages, liens and the like, it is known that the records of 
all conveyances of lands in Roxbury from 1793 are in the registry of Dedham, 
interspersed among the pages of over three hundred volumes. Consequent 
upon annexation comes the recording of futui'e conveyances and the like, 
at the registry in Boston, to be thereafter commingled among the volumi- 
nous records of Boston deeds. Hence two registries ten miles apart must 
be consulted, and the delays and expenses of investigation are, of course, 
largely increased, because of the greater multitude of city conveyances. 
Nor ai'e the inconveniences which would be thus occasioned confined to 
the citizens of Eoxbury alone. 

Because the citizens of Boston and of othertowns maj'' have occasion 
to consult these registries in their transactions with the citizens of Rox- 
bury. The deed of land on Warren Street, Roxbury, must thereafter be 
recognized as on Warren Street, Boston, and the street now known as 
Warren Street, Boston, would be designated Warren Street number one, 
or number two, unless a new nomenclature of all were adopted. 

So, also, in the Pi'obate and Insolvency department, and the Clerk of the 
Court's office, as to wills, settlement of estates, attachments, judgments and 
the like, as these are usually connected with investigations of title there is 
a manifest convenience in having all continued in the same locality. 

So far as relates to the venue of civil actions, it was urged by some of 
the petitioners, whose business called them to Boston every day, that they 
could more conveniently attend court in Boston than in Dedham. 

If they are plaintiffs, they have the right, under existing laws, to bring 
their actions in the city where they have their places of business, and in 
all personal actions they can avail themselves of the jurisdiction of the 
Boston courts. If defendants, they will be obliged to submit to the juris- 
diction of the county in which the plaiulifl" resides, if he elects so to sue in 
his own venue, — so that in this respect annexation brings no advantages. 

To the statement that they could more conveniently attend as jurors in 
Boston, it may be answered that men engaged in large business transac- 
tions, are quite as ready to urge excuses for exemption as jurors in the. 
long terms in Suflblk, as in the short terms of Norfolk. 

But, says another, why should the county oppose such a project? It 



30 

would only reduce it, say they, from a second or third to a fifth or sixth 
rate county. Well, why reduce it at all ? Why not? say the petitioners. 
Why should we ? say the respondents. 

At the last State valuation it was found that the increase of valuation in 
the Commonwealth was oiae hundred and twelve millions of dollars. Of 
this, more than one hundred millions were found to be in B.oston — 
leaving less than twelve millions increase for the residue of the State. 

As lloxbury had been favored with unexampled prosperity, during that 
decennial period, it is reasonable to presume that a portion of that 
increase was within her precincts. It does not behoove the petitioners to 
assert that the reasons, the motive and the principle which moves the one 
community city-vmrd, would not operate in a measure upon the condition 
of other communities. 

But why not ? Why should we be thus sundered ? Are we not well 
enough as we are ? As a county, is it not far more convenient now than 
it ever can be, after annexation has occurred? 

Have we not one shire, one city, great equality of condition, common 
interests, common traditions? Sufflciently good accommodations in the 
Court-house, prisons, registries, in the varied departments of oflicial duty? 
Has not the city of Roxbury hei'self contributed, from the earliest organi- 
zation of the county until now, and contributed, also, a very considerable 
share towards the furnishing of these accommodations ? 

And have not large expenditures been made by the county during the 
last few years, and has not Roxbury shared the burden of those expenses? 

And is not the county ffee from debt? 

And has not Roxbury paid a considerable share of that debt ? 

Now, if a portion of the citizens of Roxbury are willing to forego or 
abandon these, or exchange them for such similar accommodations as can 
be furnished elsewhere, and towards which she has not contributed, yet it 
is pertinent to inquire in behalf of those citizens who cannot be reconciled 
to annexation, whether justice to them would tolerate such exchange ; and 
the citizen of Boston may also inquire why his city should be obliged to 
furnish additional accommodations for a population of 28,000 beyond her 
own natural and legitimate increase, especially when that 28,000 bring no 
actual, but only a nominal enlargement of the population ? 

Now this present line of boundary between Boston and Roxbury is said 
to be an imaginary line. It is, of course, invisible in like manner as other 
lines. But it is well defined ; a short line, an ancient line, it determines 
without antagonism the limits of city jurisdictions, of county jurisdictions, 
of judicial jurisdictions, and the apportionment of representation, in the 
Senate and the House. It is certainly far more convenient, immeasurably 
more commodious, than the balcony-shaped line of boundary whicli would 
separate Dorchester, West Roxl)ury and Brookline from the city of Boston, 
when ancient lloxbury shall have been annihilated. 

CONSKQUKNCKS OF ANNEXATION. 

But the petitioners do not limit the eflect to be produced upon the county 
to Roxbury alone. They place witnesses upon the stand to testify that 



31 

like reasons will prevail for the aimexation of Brookline and Dorchester. 
In no other mode can the dream of a great metropolitan district be real- 
ized. 

Of the 200,000 persons whose business brings them to Boston, as esti- 
mated by the petitioners, how small a portion can reside in Eoxbury, its 
entire population being only 28,000, and of these nearly 3,000 engaged in 
local industry at home ? 

PIJOBATE COURTS IN ROXBURY. 

We have in Eoxbury also our Courts of Probate and Insolvency, — where 
in the public journals the daily record of deaths announce a new case for 
the dockets of its courts, cases of the testate and intestate, letters of admin- 
istration, proof of wills, bonds and inventories, motions and partitions, 
accounts and trusts, pleas of widows and orphans, creditors and debtors, 
attending in person, unaided by counsel, in matters of practical detail, 
occupying but little time ; and for the transaction of this business, the 
suitors come from all portions of the county, weekly and ofttimes during 
the week, and these courts are holden in the city of Eoxbury, and these 
are the conveniences of which the citizens of the county by this act of 
annexation are to be henceforth deprived. 

It is not pretended that the citizens of Eoxbury can transact their own 
aflairs in this department more conveniently at the Court-house in Boston, 
than at Eoxbury Street. 

ROXBURY AS A CITY. 

If these communities had not arisen in the progress of gradual and 
steady growth, — if we could not recognize them as the product and result 
of long years of history, enterprise and legislation, — if we could not trace 
them in their progress from neighborhood to parish and precinct, precinct 
to town, and town to city, until they seem to put on the robes of historic 
immortality, and array themselves in the vestments of a seemingly corpo- 
rate indestructibility ; — if, to-day, a map of Boston and its environs were 
placed in your hands, as a carte blanche, with no territorial demarcations 
or lines of municipal organization, and you were required to set lines and 
define the boundaries of this city and its suburbs, with full knowledge of 
all its adaptations to the purposes of political communities, judicial dis- 
tricts and municipal organizations, it is more than probable that human 
ingenuity could devise no better division or arrangement than that which 
now exists. 

In point of fact, it seems as though no territorial division or distribution 
of powers would be more commodious than the existing system, none more 
in accordance with the usages, ends, principles and purposes of our New 
England system of town administration. 

ACT WITHOUT PRECEDENT. 

And who can doubt, that if, from the days of colonial history the 
precinct of Eoxbury had been, till now, an integral portion of the city of 
Boston, its citizens would to-day declare that there was one indispensable 
element yet wanting to the fall measure of their prosperity, and that 



32 

would be a distinct and independent municipal government ; — for that, 
they would petition at your hands : and in such a cause as this, who can 
doubt that their request would be granted by almost universal consent, as 
being peculiarly adapted, in all their relations, to the uses and purposes of 
a distinct, separate and independent charter and control ? If these things 
are so, who can question that such act of annexation, instead of blending 
harmonious interests, would rupture the closest ties of municipal and local 
organization, — operate as the avalanche of the interests of the one upon 
those of the other, and eflect a peremptory commingling of diverse and 
discordant elements, conditions and opinions? It would be an experiment 
in legislation without precedent, or ai^proach to precedent, in the Slate, 
regardless of the associations of the past, hazarding the supply of a local 
want or the relief of some temporary discontent in this lottery of a lost 
identity, risking the homestead acquired by other hands upon the uncertain 
vicissitudes of a temporary or local opinion, annulling and extinguishing 
this charter of distinct and independent and honored municipal existence 
and organization, the growth of two hundred and thirty-seven years of 
title, coeval with Boston, almost contemporary with Plymouth and Salem, 
its uses half accomplished, its work half done, its history unwritten. 

When it was proposed to incorporate in the constitution a provision 
authorizing the grant of a city charter, it was in debate whether, in order 
to the grant of a city charter, a population of 10,000 or 30,000 should be 
required. Under the limit then adopted, Roxbury has reached that point 
and position where, in the years now passing, her city government can be 
most advantageously administered, and that local pride, which contributes 
to her advancing prosperity, should be fostered and encouraged. 

METROPOLITAN DISTRICT. 

It cannot be kept out of view that two classes of petitioners advocate 
this • measure. One class supposes that some peculiar benefits are to 
accrue to the precinct of Roxbury. The other class acts, in furtherance of 
the prospective claims of a larger metropolitan district, which shall 
embrace within the jurisdiction of the city, a metropolitan district with ten 
miles of suburbs, and the vision of a gigantic metropolis with 400,000 
inhabitants flits perpetually before their imagination. They see plainly that 
the reasons which are urged for the annexation of Roxbury, will apply 
with equal and increased force to the surrounding districts — that, as 
already suggested, portions of these districts would be injuriously aft'ected 
by this separation of Roxbury from the county. It is impossible, there- 
fore, to keep out of sight that this scheme is the first important and ftital 
movement in that direction, a movement whose consequences it may not 
afterward be possible to arrest or control, a movement which Avill compel 
an entire re-organization of the counties adjacent, and an entire change of 
municipal and political relations. 

One may say, that the county of Suft'olk can be abolished, as its jurisdic- 
tion is exercised almost entirely by the Mayor and Aldermen of Boston, 
and principally with reference to the court-house and jail — and that this 
duty could be advantageously conferred upon the authorities of Middlesex. 



33 

Another would find a remedy for all these ills in a simple repeal of the act 
creating the county of Norfolk out of the county of Suffolk ; retaining the 
districts for registry, and infusing ne\y habits of thought in the adminis- 
tration of judicial affairs, by summoning to the panel, jurors from the rural 
districts ; — but questions like these are not to be determined with reference 
to local, temporary or partial conveniences. Adherence should be had to 
the established policy of separate and distinct municipalities, as tending to- 
the diflusion and distribution of power, in perpetual antagonism to that 
concentration and consolidation of the powers of sovereignty, to which the 
movements and temper of the times and the events of the day and gener- 
ation are so irresistibly tending ; — that centralization which is at war with 
the democratic system of small town governments, as of little republics ; 
— that consolidation which is subversive of the best interests of the State. 

So far from permitting the system of representation by districts to be 
made the instrument of destroying the towns themselves, regard should be 
had to the maintenance of that system which makes the humblest town or 
city the rival of its neighbor, which induces watchfulness and a sense of 
responsibility in a democratic State, in perpetual antagonism to that 
odious policy, which once centred all in one royal line. 

Let it not be supi:)Osed that the same policy is applicable here which may 
have prevailed in cities differently constituted. 

It is the wonderful advantage of commercial position, and not legislative * 
or municipal policy or contrivances, either at Albany or anywhere, which 
has made New York a city of such magnitude and importance, — that com- 
mercial position which embraces the Hudson and East Rivers, from the 
Palisades to the Narrows and the Neversink. It was the necessity of con- 
trolling a suburban population for which the city was responsible, and not 
the choice of its inhabitants, that in the outset induced the city of Phila- 
delphia to extend its jurisdiction. But here the petitioners adduce not 
reasons like these, for they propose to bring to this city all the constituen- 
cies of an orderly, regulated, and established municipal government. But 
in this particular Massachusetts has at this time no occasion to ask of the 
Keystone or the Empire State, or to seek or adopt either modes or experi- 
ments elsewhere ; for you can look forth from these halls upon her heights 
and monuments, these suburbs and statues, and envy no other models. 

The scheme of the petitioners has its present significance as the first 
act in this drama of metropolitan ascendancy at home ; aiming at a mere 
nominal enlargement at the risk of an untried and hazaiTlous legislative 
experiment. If to be tried at all, it would be the part of wisdom to await 
the establishment of such metropolitan district, because, when created to 
control and overshadow, in after years, the legislation of the State, when 
the ordinances and by-laws and patronage of the one may be scarcely sub- 
ordinate to the statutes of the other, when we may weigh the relative 
influence of the Mayor of the District and the Governor of the State, then, 
undoubtedly, a charter will be granted, adapted to its uses, which will 
delegate to the people of these districts a limited control of their own 
affairs, and the relations of the suburbs may be thus changed by one per- 
manent and comprehensive act of legislation. 
5 



34 



ALLEGED UIITATION OF LONDON. 

But some of the petitioners propose through this instrumentality to 
contribute additional importance to the city of Boston. In what mode the 
commercial importance of this city is to be increased by annexing to its 
jurisdiction these twenty-one hundred acres of back land, remote from the 
wharves and centres of business, or by this increase of population, from 
192,000 to 220,000, at the expense of the loss and obliteration of the 
charter of its principal and most distinctive suburban city, can only be 
discerned by that telescopic vision which stretches beyond and overlooks 
the narrow conflnes of home interests, or penetrates the mazes of an 
untried future. 

Some of those who testify are loud in their expressions of admiration 
at the idea of a city with a large population, and London, New York and 
Philadelphia are their model cities. The answer is, annex as you may, you 
will realize but a feeble imitation. You may break away from your pres- 
ent distinctive New England system. The system you obliterate is nobler 
far than that which you inaugurate. Its adaptations are harmonious, com- 
plex and comprehensive. It is historic in its character, and founded in 
your annals and traditions. Laws and usages conform to and preserve its 
relations. 

NEW^ ENGLAND SYSTEM. 

There are men who appreciate the New England system, as may be seen 
In this quotation from the London Athenceum : 

"NewEnglandmay be considered the 8oul of the great Republican confederacy. It is 
not the most wealthy part of the American territory. It is not, perhaps, the most pictur- 
esque. It is certainly not the most noisy. Neither tlie capital of trade nor the capital of 
politics is built within its boundaries. It has not more roads, railways, ships, telegraphs, 
canals, than its neighbor ; not a more prosperous commerce or a nobler agriculture ; its his- 
tory is not more chivalric, nor its connection with great events or splendid men more close. 
Sections of country further south may boast of having sent up more noticeable men to the 
great .assemblies of the country. Virginia has a more romantic past, New York a more gor- 
geous present. Yet within the territories loosely designated New England, are found the 
intellectual and moral forces which make the Union what it is in the eyes of Europe. There 
lies the spirit of a pei-manent dominion. New England is the slow and serious part of the 
States, as the country to the south is the plastic, volatile and frivolous. Boston is Endin- 
burgb, as New York is Paris, and Philadelphia is Geneva. New England is, in fact, Old 
England. 

"Peopled by some of the very best men ever sent out from the motherland, it has 
remained pure in motive and in blood. Scarcely any admixture has taken place. No Lord 
Chief Justice Pophams ever poured into this territory the refuse of jails and stews. Few 
emigrants of foreign stock overturned into it. The climate is dry and sharp, the landscape 
is not brilliant, the soil is not rich. Thus the same causes which had drawn the Pilgrims to 
Plymouth as a refuge, kept away from the bleak rock their more worldly followers in the 
wake of emigration. No wild vines, or palmetto fruit, or dazzling birds allured the naviga- 
tor of its inhospitable coast. No fabled gold mines, — no reported pearl fisheries, drew the 
daring who made haste to be rich. The sky looked cold and dull. The soil barely promised 
corn and maize. To step on its shore was to encounter toil, want and care, in every shape 
which savage nature presents at a first interview to man. But the settlers who threw thcm- 
Belves on the rock, sought in their new home, — not fortune, but freedom; not gold and 
pearls, but God. 



35 

" They came alone, they remained and multiplied alone. In the three or four millions, 
which a few years ago made up the population of New England, no foreign element was 
visible in name or visage. The thousands had in six or seven generations multiplied into 
millions; but multiplied without mixture of race or transformation of character, just as they 
might have done in Yorkshire or East Anglia. While New York, under the influence of an 
immense irruption of Irish, Franks and Germans, continued without pause, like the first 
flowing of the Saxons into Britain, sunk into luxury or rose into crime, the less showy coun- 
try to the north remained intact — kept its own moral boundaries — and preserved the rigid 
and fervent character of its people remarkably free from change or stain. Thus, a nation, 
as it were, simple, solid and stable, grew up with another nation open to infinite fluctuations 
of thought, obeying every impulse of the moment, splendid, experimental and productive 
in its march of more showy events and exceptional men. But what is gained in speed is 
lost in power. The solid mass of New England character weighs far more in the destiny of 
America than the noisy smartness and ephemeral success of New York." 

Thus, we have another opinion. 

If Roxbury desires annexation, we trust she will be content to enjoy the 
accommodations of a post-ofllce in State Street, and not require its 
removal; she certainly will be relievedof the inconveniences of her present 
City Hall. There need be no further apprehensions upon the subject of 
nuisacces in the Back Bay. The Commonwealth, by its Back Bay Commis- 
sioners, has the matter in charge. The eye of the men of the highlands 
is upon it. From those eminences they view the exhalations which, like 
the mists of the morning, obstruct their view of the dome of the coveted 
metropolis. The western breezes sweep its odors to their doors. These 
nuisances will now be speedily removed, for in this last hearing they have 
abandoned the highlands, and matters more particularly related to the gov- 
ernment of the city, and made their chief movement and field of operations 
ou the marsh and Back Bay. 

COMMONWEALTH LANDS IN BACK BAY. 

It is a strange paradox that the petitioners have, at this hearing, made 
every eflbrt to produce the impression that the Commonwealth's pecuniary 
interests in the Back Bay lands (all of which are already within the limits 
of Boston) would be promoted by annexation. And at the same time their 
argument is urged, that if the highlands were in Boston they would be so 
superior to any of these new made lands that gentlemen of wealth and taste 
would seek them. So that perhaps there would be no occasion for the 
Commonwealth to fill more marsh lands, and Back Bay could remain as it 
is for a half century to come. 

WITHOUT PRECEDENT. 

I have said that such act of annexation would be without precedent, or 
approach to precedent in the State. 

At the time of the annexation of South Boston, in 1804, only twelve fami- 
lies were resident there. There was no bridge across the channel, and the 
number of families was not sufficient to support a ferry. To reach that 
territory, which was then in the town of Dorchester, required a journey of 
nearly four miles from the city proper. 

It is separated by an extensive body of salt marsh from the improved 
lands of Dorchester. 



36 

So also, in the more recent setting off of Washington Village from Dor- 
chester to Boston. It was a small precinct, in proximity to South Boston, 
and, if I rightly recollect, its annexation was consummated with the con- 
currence of Boston and Dorchester, as well as of the residents of the 
precinct. 

It would seem, certainly, that in such a matter as this, an almost entire 
unanimity of sentiment and opinion, clearly and unequivocally expressed, 
and not to be sought as a condition subsequent, ought to precede any 
discussion, even, of this subject within these walls. 

We ai'e not advocates of this system of centralization and consolidation. 
We protest against this forced inequality of judicial districts. We would 
have no cities grappled to cities by an exercise of the powers of sover- 
eignty, even by a majority of the people of the two cities, could such 
majority be had. We desire no reconstruction of our New England sys- 
tem. The legislators at a single session of the General Coui-t, ought not 
to regard a subject of this magnitude, as one of the ordinary incidents of 
legislation, familiar as the calendar or the orders of the day. 

Schemes of annexation like this can exert only slight influence in 
enhancing the commercial importance and prosperitj' of the city of Bos- 
ton. What are the elements which contribute to that importance ? Not, 
in any respect, the wide, unmeasured acres and areas out there, counted 
out in lots or meadows, gardens or pastures. No. It is State Street, with 
its hundreds of millions in values, in banking, and capital, and exchange ; 
its trusts and banks of discount and deposit. It is the railroads that 
reach their termini within the sound of the Old South bell, and bring their 
freights from the North and West, from the lakes and the mines, and from 
the wells down below them both. 

INCREASE OF THE DIPORTANCE OF BOSTON. 

It is these that bring their tributes to enhance the commercial impor- 
tance of the city of Boston. It is Franklin Street and Milk Street, the 
representatives of the factories of Lowell, of the spindles of Lawrence 
and iladley, of Newmarket and Manchester. It is Pearl Street, representing 
the tanneries of Danvers and the shoe marts of Lynn and Milford, of 
Essex and Middlesex, of Worcester and Norfolk, of Plymouth and Bristol. 
It is the wharves and docks, all the way round from the channels at East 
to the flats at South Boston, as they gather in the commerce of the seas. 
It is the character, the entei'prise and sagacity, the honor and integrity 
of its merchants, the wisdom of its legislators, it is these, more than 
extended areas and far-reaching lines of boundary, that conduce to the 
prosperity and importance of our New England city. 

We may have lieard, perchance, of the East India and Victoria docks, 
the Royal Exchange, the Strand, and Cornhill, and Tlireadneedle Street ; 
but of those extensive districts m;uiy of them containing perhaps a larger 
population tlian that of the entire city of Boston, Lambeth, Islington, 
Pancras, Marylebone, and Pimlico, comparatively less. 

Most assuredly we should be legislating in a wrong direction, and 
reversing the wonted course of legislation. Division and subdivision 



37 

have been the watchwords. Witness the district system for the election 
of Councillors, Senators and Representative ; West Roxlniiy set off from 
Eoxbury, Somerville from Charlestown ; South Danvers, Belmont and Win- 
chester. 

It is going backward, to mould our municipal systems after the usages 
of the old world. There is no occasion for these movements, which fore- 
shadow or necessitate the changes of a metropolitan district. 

True, there goes a saying, echoed in this hall, that annexation is " inev- 
itable." We heard it in years gone by. It is difficult to discourse with 
one whose schemes and conclusions are all " inevitable." There is little 
profit in prophesying, unless you prophesy inevitable things. Some hun- 
dred years ago there was a prophet who predicted that the city of London 
by this time, would by necessity, — by inevitable necessity, making all 
allowances and deductions for the ravages of war and pestilence, — contain 
a population, not as now, of three millions only, but a multitude, com- 
pared with which the present is as a fraction. Results may be inevitable, 
yet premature, — by a century premature. Decay is inevitable, and yet it 
may be premature. 

It is premature to-day to map out Boston and its surrounding districts, 
to adapt its jurisdictions to the similitudes of the cities of the old world. 
It will be a long time before, this city, annex its suburbs as you may, will 
contain a population of three million upon an area but little larger than 
one-third the teri-itory of Norfolk. It will be a long day before it may 
compare with London, either in population or its seventy or eighty thou- 
sand acres of territory. Long before it will be embraced in four counties 
— for its population has not yet equalled that of some of the districts of 
that distant city. 

It would be the part of wisdom to defer action, because it is less and 
less probable that this application will be hereafter renewed. The heavy 
debts uow contracting on the part of these cities, render it less probable 
that Boston, for the next generation at least, will be able or disposed to 
lavish its treasures upon the suburban districts ; and experience has proved 
that improvements in the suburbs must mainly depend upon the enterprise 
and resources of those suburbs themselves, and the wants and necessities 
of these communities are more readily and voluntarily supplied by those 
who participate most directly in their advantages. 

VOTE OF THE CITIES. 

Finally, I recur again to the suggestion, that these cities should by their 
corporate and organized action, in the first instance by the vote of Rox- 
bury, and the vote of the government of Boston, submit this question to 
you as the arbiters and tribunal to determine these expediencies, and that 
this should not be made to depend as a condition subsequent. And for 
obvious reasons ; because, that should such an act as this find any favor 
here, there is no reasonable probability that the citizens would be con- 
touted to abide the result. For the men who are at their homes to-day, 
who anticipate no such result as this, would become the petitioners then. 
They would come to ask at your hands the restoration of their former 



38 

fights, immunitieg and privileges, the liberty to assume again the name of 
their ancient and honored municipality, with that date which preceded the 
necessities of charter ; in those names so inseparably associated with her 
own, in the eventful days of her history, with the flags that upholster 
these halls, they would ask at your hands the restoration of their charter, 
the right to govern themselves ; and for aught that you or I can say, on 
some other day the men of Massachusetts, with one universal condemna- 
tion of such an act as this, may reverse or expunge the record; and there- 
fore, I say, an almost entire unanimity of sentiment and opinion ought to 
precede any legislative action on this subject. 

When, in the years of the past, a demand has been made for new avenues 
towards the metropolis, and the citizens of Roxbury and of the county of 
Norfolk have undertaken public improvements in this portion of the county, 
the enterprise has been urged in the assurance then that they would open 
sources of revenue which would aid in sustaining the burdens of taxation ; 
that the additional tax to be derived would warrant the expenditure. 

Ought then a change of jurisdiction to be permitted to divert that revenue ? 
Is not public detriment occasioned by such changes ? And is it said that 
they are to be retained, in order to tax them? Not at all: they do but 
bear their share of the common burdens. 

We are not " misled " in the belief that annexation must be attended with 
heavy increase of taxation to Roxbury, without corresponding benefit to 
Boston, in the charge of these suburban interests, clamoring for improve- 
ments for which they cannot afl'ord to pay. We are not misled in the belief 
that the prosperity of Roxbury is derived, not so much from the fact 
that its lands are sought alone for palatial residences, but also that those 
lands are sought by those who search for cheaper and less expensive habi- 
tations. That it has a home industry peculiarly its own. That not all its 
citizens adopt the language, " We are Boston now." Not all are residents 
in body, non-residents in soul. The old hearth-stones are not yet forgot- 
ten. Its past is rich in traditions. Its present is replete with prosperity- 
No destructive arm of legislation should imperil the vicissitudes of its 
future. 



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